Lacepede Island, Australia

The Lacepede Islands in Western Australia—known simply as the Lacepedes—are a birdwatcher’s paradise, home to what is possibly the world’s largest colony of Brown Boobies with 18,000 breeding pairs. Located just off the Kimberley coast about 75 miles north of Broome, this chain of four small sandspits (West, Middle, Sandy, and East) is also home to around 20,000 Roseate Terns, along with a host of other seabirds including masked boobies, Australian pelicans, Pacific reef heron, common noddies, and sooty oystercatchers. Grey-tailed tattlers, ruddy turnstones, whimbrels, and other wading birds also visit the Lacepedes, which have been designated as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International. What’s more, these low-lying cays—formed from fragments of course sand and coral—are Western Australia’s most important breeding habitat for endangered green turtles, and migrating humpback whales are frequently sighted in the area during the winter and early spring. While Zodiac landings are prohibited in this sensitive environment, Seabourn’s expert Expedition Team members will get you close enough to witness all the avian action.